In the distant past, the newly risen Zhou, under the leadership of King Wu, marched against the declining Shang in the name of the Mandate of Heaven. The last Shang ruler—the tyrant Di Xin, King Zhou—burned himself alive before the Zhou armies, mocking the Mandate and cursing all things in this world with a hatred without equal. From that moment on, every form of divination and every reading of the stars fell into disorder, until the calamitous star that his curse had summoned crashed to earth, rousing the dead hidden within the underworld. At the head of that host of the undead stood Di Xin himself.
Thus arose the faction known as the Fallen Shang of Haoli. In years of uneven calamity, they leave Haoli, driven by the treacherous star-omens and by sunlight filtering through layer upon layer of a shattered firmament, to plunder the world of the living—preparing once more to contend for the realm.
(This is a new project from other members of our club, who decided to take on a personal challenge: an alternate-history stage work titled Tianyun Chunqiu, set in ancient China's Spring and Autumn period. They asked me to help spread the word.)